Singapore Airlines Offers The Most Exclusive Champagne Tasting In The Air

The most exclusive Champagne tasting in the air, offered by Singapore Airlines in first class on international flights, starts with an innocuous question.

"Would you like a glass of Champagne, sir? says Stephanie Lim.

I'm in one of the 12 first-class suites on the Frankfurt-New York A380 flight, which originated in Singapore, and although it's only 10:30am, why not say 'why not'?

Champagne is a mainstay of brunch, and in first class, Singapore actually does scrambled eggs at 36,000 feet, a feat it boasts about, as it was, technically speaking, apparently a Manhattan project: fresh eggs, microwave, from thence on a state secret, but certainly not the standard heat-chill-reheat recipe.

The Champagne offer, however, is distinctly understated.

"May I suggest Dom Perignon?" says Lim.

Of course I'm in on the script. But this is really how it goes.

In first class, Singapore actually does a Dom Perignon (currently the 2006, the latest release) versus Krug Grande Cuvèe tasting. Habituès know this, but a first-timer might not and the airline doesn't promote it. If you say, "too early for me," (or "too late" on NY-Frankfurt), you've missed a great flight of Champagne.

"It's not meant to be a program," says Boyd, and the word 'program' carries a single quote, just a tint of disdain, because Singapore disdains to promote anything to first-class passengers, who pay $12,000+ roundtrip on New York-Singapore. Despite the fact that the airline has been serving both Champagnes for 30 years. (Business class passengers aren't too bad off: The carrier now serves a Charles Heidsieck, having exhausted the Taittinger Prelude Grand Crù.)

What many first-class passengers also probably don't know is that Lim is a Singapore Airlines Air Sommelier, one of a cadre of just over 100 (out of about 7,000 crew members) who have, often on their own dime, passed a series of wine courses and have been issued a certificate by the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, based in the UK. It took Lim four years to get the credential--she went to Hong Kong to take the courses--and Boyd asserts that Air Sommeliers pursue the education out of interest, not the prospect of promotion. Air Sommeliers undergo the usual cabin rotation, working economy class when it's their turn, and not every long-haul Singapore flight has an Air Sommelier in first class. The program was started in 1998.

Even when the attendant is an Air Sommelier, she doesn't tell you. It's up to you to start the conversation. (And you won't, even with spirited questioning, get a pronounced opinion on the wines--it's all nuance--but Kim did give me a list of her favorite wine bars in Singapore after I asked.)

The Dom versus Krug offering is but the luxury veneer of a very complicated operation. To cater to first- and business-class passengers, Singapore Airlines actually runs a major wine business on the side.

"At any given time we have 42 labels flying around," says Singapore's wine czar Hermann Freidank, a trained chef who oversees the purchase of 20,000 bottles annually just for first class, among them four, aged Second Growth Bordeaux (but purchased as futures).

"We're now on the 2007s," he tells me. There's also a guaranteed Grand Cru Burgundy in first, "one of our headaches," Freidank admits, because production is so small and Singapore Airlines thirst is so large. Freidank also organizes Singapore's twice-annual tasting panel in Singapore, which includes Jeannie Cho Lee, Asia's first female Master of Wine. The panel's mission is to create a short-list of wines for the future, including 'Wildcard Wines," more or less Eliza Doolittle bottlings, no lineage but great hidden potential. (The panel goes through 400-500 wines in each session.)

Singpaore Airlines spends about US$16 million annually on wine. The Champagne bill for business class alone is "close to $10 million Singapore dollars annually," Freidank says (US$7.4 million), adding with a bit of swagger, "We wiped out Taittinger Prelude recently."

As for Dom and Krug, both properties store the bottles for Singapore until it needs them, at which point they are put on board a temperature-controlled freighter to Singapore, where the airline has a storage facility that can hold nearly 500,000 bottles.

"We have one case of each wine in the cellar for quality control, and we taste each vintage and label with the consultants once a year to make an assessment--this is the only time I don't spit," says Freidank. "This, however, only represents a fraction of the wine within our inventory, as the bulk of Singapore's cases are stored with individual vintners until needed." Then he adds that he would love to serve Château de la Marquetterie and Roederer Cristal in first class, but that neither property can supply the wine in the quantity required.

The Dom-Krug perk turns out to be a cultural Rorschach Test. "We serve more Dom than Krug," says Friedank (60% vs. 40%), attributing it to the fact that the brand is seen as more presitigious in Asia, where Singapore has the most flights. But on flights from Singapore's Frankfurt hub, it's the reverse--and Freidank admits to being "a Krug man."

By 10:37 breakfast is over--the Dom went better with the scrambled eggs in my opinion--and I have a happy head. Which is one of the amber lights of a perk like this.

Another round, please, is irrestible, but at 36,000 feet the effect is also irretardible--the alcohol is empowered. It's a matter of cabin pressure, which is roughly equivalent to that at 6,000 feet, meaning there's a lot less oxygen to absorb the bubbly punch. (Double the rule of one glass of water for each glass of wine.) You're drinking in Denver, Johannesburg, or the Andes, and therefore you must have a guardian angel who says 'enough' at some point--who says, 'you're not going to go on to the 2007 Rausan Segla or the 2011 Jadot Clos Vougeot Grand Cru.' Lim has had only had one passenger who managed to get through the entire list, but that was on a 12-hour flight and who knows what agony ensued.

Boyd acknowledges the downside. "We're not trying to pour you off the plane." Fair enough. You're in first class, you're an adult, behave responsibly.

But here's the real problem: As the plane gains altitude, your taste buds lose altitude because the cabin's low humidity dries out the muscous membranes. Translation: They start to go numb. You want more.

At 36,000 feet, the cabin air is drier than that of most deserts, which is why Freidank says, "You don't want too nuanced a wine in the air." It is also why Singapore Airlines has a pressurized chamber in Singapore so meals and drinks can be tasted under real conditions--and rejiggered to compensate.

But the Krug and Dom are in the bottle. To get the most fizz, let the first-class purser know that you'd like to start the tasting as soon after take-off as possible, as it takes 20 minutes or so for the body to adjust to altitude. That probably gives you a round at ground level.

Despite the altitude, the two Champagnes adhered to their flavor profiles, the Dom more like a wine, the Krug full of its bready nose. At 36,000 feet, I was indeed at cruising altitude, and thanks to my guardian angel, I made a smooth landing at JFK.

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